Company of The Dead
by DVA2195
Summary: Contracted in a foreign country, cut off from allies and caught up in a deadly mission; Scott Reid is stuck in a dangerous tango between completing his mission and ensuring the survival of himself and his squad mates in a world that has become more hostile than ever before in human history. Rated M for graphic violence.
1. Entry 1: Dead Intel

**Hey again everybody. So I am presenting you with my third story since joining FanFiction and I'm excited to bring this to you. I will be continuing my work on The Voices in the Night while writing this so the release dates for each will vary depending on how often/much I write for either and as of right now the ending for both stories is dependent on the manga so these may take a while. The companies and their respective products that are used or mentioned in this story, along with the characters and setting from HOTD, solely belong to them and I claim only the idea and characteristics of my created characters. Now let's get this show on the road. **

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Company of the Dead

Entry 1

Death's Deployment

April 8, 2011

Viper Strike Inc. Headquarters, Texas, U.S.A

18:15 Local Time

"Quiet down gentlemen, Jackson hit the lights." The authoritative voice demanded as the roomed dimmed and quickly drew silent.

"I'm sure all of you are aware of the current situation occurring over the past six hours across the globe, even here in our United States, a pandemic unknown to human history is unfolding."

"I told you zombies were real Mike!" A confidently young voice announced from the back of the room.

"Shut up Sanchez. Now as I was saying, this pandemic could easily be labeled as the zombie apocalypse but politicians and world leaders are referring to this as The Pandemic." The speaker continued.

"Boy they sure are a clever bunch, huh?" Sanchez piped again earning himself some chuckles across the room.

"Official reports don't say what the cause is, but this _disease_ is HIGHLY contagious and eyewitness reports claim the infection is spread through the transfer of bodily fluids, mainly the oral transfer."

"So basically if you're bitten by an infected, you become infected." Another party member added.

"In Laymen's terms, yes Marcus that's correct. Now here's where we at VSI come into focus." He continued as a map of Japan was projected onto a screen.

"We have been hired by the Japanese government to conduct a separate search and rescue and infection cleansing while the US Army and the Japanese Self-Defense Force try to maintain order in the country." A hand, formed from years of hardship, quickly shot into the air.

"What is it Alcorn?"  
"What exactly do you mean by _infection cleansing_ sir?" He curiously questioned

"Kill'em and burn'em." He bluntly replied as he continued the briefing.

"Currently, the Japanese government has shut down all ports, except those currently in use by the Army; so we're going to have to arrange an agreement with the Army for our use of their carrier and landing craft to bring most of you ashore. We have, however, been granted air clearance to drop some of you boys in via HALO jump into the country."

"Alright, I've always wanted to HALO jump!" Sanchez exuberantly stated. Ignoring his second outburst, the speaker continued.

"We will now proceed to assigning duties to the appropriate teams. Those who are search and rescue are as follows: Razgriz, Angle, Graveyard, Eagle, Shock and Trident. The rest of you will establish a base exactly as we would in any other combat area, and will discover productive means of eradicating the infected." Documents containing our specific assignments along with gathered information were distributed as the speaker explained the details of the contents. He explained the copies of eyewitness reports, photographs of the infected, and a scaled down version of the projected map.

Ryan, the operations leader at Viper Strike and the man conducting the current briefing, continued for the next fifteen minutes detailing our operational rules and guidelines for the impending mission. While he did I scanned the documents we'd been given to gain a better understanding of what we'd be doing.

"Search and rescue teams will be deployed first and you will be going in light, so ration your ammunition and supplies until the following day. Your primary mission until the main forces land and establish the base is to find shelter, survivors, collect data on the infected and wait for radio confirmation of the supply drops. In the event that you discover survivors that are in large numbers or in too hot of a zone to extract on foot, you will have the Japanese Self Defense Force prepared to extract via helicopter. You are to mark the LZ with flares or IR strobes if a night extract is requested so be sure to stock up on those. Now if there aren't any questions, S&amp;R teams go gear up your flight leaves in an hour and a half, be there in an hour. Dismissed." As the lights glowed back to their previous luminescence, the S&amp;R teams began forming as they returned to their quarters to begin packing their gear.

As I left the briefing room, I thought about the events that had been unfolding since this morning and how I hadn't seen anything except news footage. Now, within the next fourteen to fifteen hours I was going to witness firsthand what had been happening across the world.

"Hey Scotty, hold up a sec!" A voice that I instantly knew who it belonged to called out. Out of the all the members that lived on the Viper Strike Inc. base (my guesstimate is about two to three hundred) there was only one that referred to me by my full first name, and that was…

"Sanchez, what's buddy?"

"Hey, some pretty crazy stuff has been going down huh?" He asked as he joined my pace and walked along side me.

"Yeah no kidding. Who'd've thought the whole zombie thing could ever really happen."

"I know right? You know I knew quite a few kids in my hometown that said they would love for this kind of thing to happen, but I don't think they ever really knew what they were really saying, you know? I think they played too many games that depicted these kinda things as something to simply shrug your shoulders at and move on. I really do hope they're all right." He stated with the most serious tone and look on his face I'd ever seen, which completely bewildered me as Sanchez was hardly ever serious.

"Ok, who are you and what've you done with Sanchez?" I teased while faking a confused look.

"Oh ha ha, Scotty. So you and your boys are part of S&amp;R huh? He replied with a chuckle that was both fake and honest for him.

"Yep, like Ryan said, we're heading out in an hour and a half. You're part of the set up crew right?"

"Yep, a trained killer being assigned to build fences, set up tables and make beds sounds more like I'm a butler or a janitor instead of a former Marine." He scoffed while explaining his assignment.

"Well Ronald, be sure my bed is cool and I have a nice cup of coffee waiting for when I arrive at the mansion." I playfully remarked while lightly shoving him.

"Yes Master and I'll be sure to put a few scorpions in your bed and worms in your coffee as well." He retorted as he attempted to return my shove but instead left himself open as I dodged it and placed him in a headlock before proceeding to give him a well-placed noogie. After he admitted defeat, I released him and we parted ways as I continued to my quarters and he to the mess hall.

"Well there's our man, we were just discussing whether or not you'd get here before liftoff." A voice jested as I entered the room.

"C'mon Tyler, if I wasn't here who'd remind you to pack fresh underwear?" I retorted as I began packing my own gear.

"Well you don't have to remind all of us, just Dustin." Another voice snickered.

"Come on man, just because I forgot them one time doesn't mean I always forget!"

"Yeah Mark, we can't let you forget the time you left your rifle in the bathroom during the Brasilia job." Tyler quickly jabbed and after laughing and joking for a bit we finished gathering what we needed from our room then headed to the armory.

After signing in with both a signature book and an ID swipe, we began the choosing our weapons. Tyler bee lined to the submachine guns and instantly acquired his favorite Kriss Super V, fully equipped with folding stock, EO Tech holographic sight and tactical flashlight/laser combination housed above the barrel. Moving on to his second favorite weapon type, he quickly made his decision. The UTS-15 twelve gauge shotgun was certainly one of the newest and more interesting shotguns in the armory but it was also one of the most reliable and compact pump-actions we had stocked. His final choice was the Colt M1911 .45 ACP pistol, it didn't hold the most number of rounds out of our stock, but it certainly was one of the stronger pistols we owned. After selecting the appropriate suppressors, he turned his selection over to the maintenance crew for fine tuning then browsed the remaining firearms in the armory.

While Mark and Dustin were collaborating on their selections, I was elaborating on my own options. My typical weapon of choice is the SCAR-H, but for this operation the standard 7.62 round would be a little more punch than what I was going to need and I wasn't a big fan of its 5.56 brother, the SCAR-L. Searching the rest of the rack I came across the Bushmaster ACWR and with the multiplatform capabilities, a lightweight build coupled with a sturdy build I decided my match was found. Continuing to browse the racks of weapons I couldn't find any others that appealed to me, so I followed Tyler's lead and acquired a Colt M1911 then submitted my selections as well as selecting the two appropriate suppressors for my selection.

As my weapons were being tuned I reviewed the dossier I received and began reviewing the contents and strategizing possible routes. Our designated search zone was the entirety of Tokonsou City and small portions of the surrounding areas, but our landing zone was somewhere near a school and a major river that lay west of the school, a large mall, police station, a residential district that resided on the opposite bank of the school as well as other possible landmarks.

"Is that what Ryan distributed at the meeting?" Mark asked as he submitted his weapons to the crew.

"Yeah, didn't you get one?"

"I did, but I didn't look at it after he went over the basics of its contents." He replied as he began skimming the documents.

"Well it seems to me, from what I can tell from all of this information, that people are infected at different rates depending on multiple variables but they mainly seem to be the size and number of bites and the person's own immune system strength." I informed while scrutinizing witness reports.

"Makes sense to me. If this thing is a virus spread through bites, I would think it would have to fight a potential host's immune system before being able to control its body albeit it doesn't seem to typically take long." He grimly responded as he read some witness reports and viewed a few of the pictures of the infected.

"Hey Tyler, your gear is ready!" A voice suddenly announced and looking up from my papers I saw the voice belonged to the gear maintenance crew chief, Jack Nelson.

"Hey, Scott, Mark, so ya'll are getting ready for the big mission huh?" He asked as we greeted each other.

"Yeah, just reviewing the Intel that Ryan passed out and making sure these blockheads don't lose track of time."

"Ah, I see. So you guys seem to have a pretty big area to zone by yourselves is this gear going to cut it?"

"Yeah, it shouldn't be all that difficult seeing as how we'll have supply drops at regular intervals along with the base that'll be set up." I explained while showing him the specific locations on the map and as we continued talking, each of our weapon selections were tuned and modified for the mission.

"Well, you guys stay safe and don't forget this any of you; at any moment something could go wrong and you won't have all this support, so be prepared to survive. Cuz who knows what could happen in this situation." He sternly and grimly stated as we parted from the armory and made our way back to our barracks to finish gearing up.

With ten minutes left before our departure, we conducted our ceremonial final look of our room just in case one, or all, of us didn't come back. The few posters that hung on the walls, the calendars with family pictures next to them and important dates marked on them nailed on the wall beside our beds, and the feeling of home we had made on this base and as we each left the room we tapped the picture drawn for us by a child we encountered on one of our assignments.

A few minutes later we stood on the TARMAC checking our gear one last time before we loaded onto the C-130. As the cargo bay door closed I watched the light slowly fade until the last sliver was abruptly cut as the door sealed our fate and as the four engines roared to life, all of our worry, anxiety and anxiousness was drowned along with the sound from outside the plane. The sudden lurch of the plane leaving the ground and beginning its ascent left a single thought within all of our minds.

Here we go.

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**As you could see, I'm trying a new writing style that I think will make reading dialogue easier and hopefully eliminate walls of text from being produced. I haven't had much writing time as I have moved recently as well as starting working full time, but I'm going to make it a point to write every night so I can post chapters for my stories at more regular intervals. **

**In relation to character bios, weapon info and other information that I've gathered, I'm either going to explain them in the story or have separate chapters giving detail into them.**

**I've started the next chapter for The Voices in the Night, so if you haven't had the chance to read that I suggest you do and I'll post that chapter as soon as I'm done with it.**

**Thanks for reading and I'll see you next time.**


	2. Entry 2: Dead Drop

**Just a little tip for those of you who don't know military time, from midnight to ten in the morning is a zero followed by the hour then minutes ( 0015 would be 12:15, 0130 and so on). From ten to noon is regular time, but after noon it changes to the hour plus twelve (1:00 in the afternoon is 1300, 2:00 is 1400 and so on until midnight which is 2400) there is also no colon in military time, now on to the story.**

Dead Drop

April 9, 2011

Japanese Airspace, Pacific Ocean

0825 Local Time

The droll of the engines seemed to have faded as the flight had egged on but now, with a mere five minutes left, their boastfully loud roar drilled my eardrums louder than when we left.

_Red Light_

"Red light, check gear!" The bay crewman barked over the engines.

We began our final jump preparations and stood up when ready. Two lines of thirty-two highly trained, slightly anxious operators stood neatly ready to jump head first into their mission and as the ramp of the Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules ( Super Herc as we all referred to it as) the adrenaline unyieldingly pumped through all of our bodies.

"Thirty seconds!" He bellowed as a final warning.

"Cuz it's one for the money!" One squad hailed

"Two for the show!" Another followed

"Three to get ready!" Mark, Tyler, Dustin and I exclaimed

_Green Light_

"Green light!"

"and four; LET'S GO!" We all howled as we filed out into the open air of the Japanese sky.

The sky filled with sixty-four fearless souls as they plummeted to the hostile earth below them, at a deathly pace and slowly they formed into sixteen, four man squads and my own squad mates join me in an aerial circle. Giving each other a thumb up and a nod, we hastened our descent until our altitude sensors tripped at which point we pulled our rip chords.

There are many sensations in this world that I will never forget, two of them are free falling and coasting on a parachute. The weightlessness and rush of the wind ripping at your body as you descend through the air then the sudden jerk of your parachute catching wind and gently gliding you down to earth is nearly impossible to describe in words, it's a sensation that one must sense for themselves.

As we floated through the sky I took in the visage of the city below us. Cars were piled in multiple places along the streets, smoke billowed in the distance and the infected were everywhere like a plague of locusts that devoured everything living in their path. Below us buildings were growing larger and I quickly adjusted my chute to land me atop what seemed to be a school building and I was swiftly followed by my three comrades.

As the rooftop came into view I could see infected dotted the white surface like ants. Drifting closer and closer, I prepped myself for landing and a quick parachute release. We quickly learned that the infected were sensitive to sound, as they reacted to the sound of our landing and began investigating around us.

Coming nearer to us, I motioned that we stay silent and grabbed my knife. Choosing the closest one to me, I stepped forward and planted my blade in its temple. Dustin, Mark and Tyler followed suit and soon after we had cleared the rooftop.

"Geeze that was a lot!" Mark exclaimed while sitting down as Tyler and Dustin gathered the bodies into a line.

"Yeah but look, it looks like someone took care of a few of 'em before we got here." Dustin stated as he pointed to what looked like an observatory where some bodies, furniture and a water hose lay.

"Well it looks like we'll get to meet plenty more of 'em too." I said as I motioned towards the school yard below us where the infected roamed about.

"Aaaaaw man!" He complained.

"So what's the plan Scott?" Dustin inquired ignoring Mark's little outburst.

"Well, let's see…" I said as I pulled the map from one of my vest pouches and laid it atop the roof. We began discussing possible actions and routes to take, either to stay on this roof, or upper floors of this school, until the first drop was made or to head straight for the largest looking inhabited area on the map and try to find survivors and then head to the drop when it was made, along with some other ideas.

"Well, I think it'd be best if we tried to find some survivors and see if there is some sort of rendezvous point for the Feds to pick 'em up at. I know the base we're gonna set up will serve as that, but what about until then? I would think the government would already have a system set up for their military to extract survivors." Dustin explained.

"Yeah, don't they have some task force or whatever deployed right now?" Tyler added.

"The Self Defense Force and yeah they're deployed right now to my knowledge, but I'm willing to bet they're pretty swamped as is. But I'd put my money on the military being the ones pulling survivors out to the safe zones." I informed them as I examined the map.

"Well we need to decide on something; it's still morning but none the less, we're still burning daylight. Scott, the decision is yours." Mark confirmed as he grabbed his SASR, switched to his secondary and stood up.

"No matter what you choose, I'm behind you man." Dustin concurred as he too stood.

"You know my position Scott." Tyler stated as he loaded a magazine into his Vector and attached the suppressor.

As I took a moment to look over the map I made my decision, but first we'd need a set of wheels.

"Ok, we're going to grab a vehicle and head to this estate. It's bound to belong to someone influential around here and it could provide as a more secure safe zone until the drop." I explained as I marked our destination on the map.

"Where are we going to get keys to any of the vehicles though?" Mark inquired

"If my memory serves me correctly, the faculty room should have the keys to all the vehicles on campus." I said as I headed for the door leading into the school.

"How're we going to find it though? We don't know the layout of the school and I don't think we know Japanese well enough to read the signs." Dustin pointed out.

"We'll just have to search for it, and I can read the signs here pretty well, but that's a story for after we get our ride." I explained as I screwed my suppressor on as well.

"Alright, so are we ready to rock'n'roll?" Mark asked as he chambered a new round in his second weapon, a Heckler &amp; Koch G36C complete with suppressor.

"Let's go guys, but keep it quiet." I ordered as we descended into the school.

Stepping over the fallen infected, we descended into the school and discovered the horror that had ensued the day before. Blood smeared the walls and floor, the mangled bodies of those that didn't turn had begun to rot, creating a stomach turning stench while the ghastly moans of the infected echoed throughout the halls.

"It probably won't help much, but get your masks on and maybe it'll dilute some of this stench." I suggested as I stopped to pull my own mask on.

"This certainly isn't the worst thing we've smelled, but it is pretty bad. The masks do seem to take the smell down a notch though." Dustin confirmed as he finished fitting his mask.

"We good then?" I asked.

"Good here." Mark informed.

"Set and ready boss." Dustin stated.

"Yep." Tyler stated.

"Well then, let's get a ride." I said as we continued down the hall.

With each step, we took care to make as little sound as possible in order to not attract any of the infected and make our trek trouble free. One hall clear of infected, two halls, three halls it seemed as if they had all gathered in the lower sections in reference to our current position; too bad we had another level to go down to, what looked like, the faculty room. Fun.

The descent revealed more of the chaos that had ensued during the outbreak; we found bodies that had been trampled on the floor, some that had fallen down the stairs and some that went over the railing. A teacher's body lay in the hallway of the second floor of our descent and it was evident he was previously infected, previously due to the fact his head was smashed in.

"Well, I guess it really is like in the movies." Tyler dryly whispered as we came to a three way cross with a path ahead, one to the right and one to the left.

_"2-C, 2-D, Geology Club…"_ The left sign read.

_"2-B, 2-A, Language Arts Club…"_ The right sign stated.

_"2-F, 2-E, Faculty Room…" _The sign running down the hall in front of us posted.

"Bingo." I breathed with satisfaction and a few seconds later, we were standing at the door. The area around us had a few infected that had been taken down using nails.

"Clever kids." Mark whispered from behind me. Peeking around the corner, the room was clear and I motioned for them to move in. Entering per our usual clearing technique, we closed the door and barricaded it shut using a previously made barricade. The room was still in decent shape and didn't look to have been affected by the outbreak except for the desks used in the barricade.

"Hey Scott, I found some keys here." Dustin informed from the other side of the room.

"How many? I asked walking towards the window.

"One key that looks to be a bus key and a few that seem like personnel vehicles, but that's it." He reported.

"Yup, that seems to match what I can see in the lot." I said

"So are we going to take one of those buses?" Mark inquired with a somewhat disbelieving look in his eyes.

"We could use it to pick up any survivors that would be willing to board with us." Tyler said while loading his UTS.

"Yeah, but we won't be able to get through a lot of spaces 'cuz of its size." Mark added.

"But it will protect us better from infected because of that size and the fact that it's enclosed." I interjected.

"So bus it is?" Dustin asked as his hand hovered over the rack and I looked to Tyler and Mark for their response.

"Yup." Tyler said as he switched back to his Vector.

"Sure." Mark somewhat exasperatedly said.

"Hey, cheer up man. If we see a sports car, we'll stop so you can hotwire it." I reassured him while slapping his back.

"I'm keeping you to that Scott." He cheerily replied.

"Grab it and let's get." I commanded as I started moving the blockade.

"Copy that." Dustin said as he grabbed the key and began helping me.

A few minutes later, we were back in the hallway making our way to the parking lot and I noticed that the halls still seemed devoid of infected. Plenty of bodies and gore in the halls, but no walking infected; it made things easier in terms of moving, but I couldn't shake the sinking feeling that things were about to get worse before they got better.

"Hold up guys." I ordered. The entrance had a few infected shuffling about, but just beyond the doors was a totally different story. From the roof the lot was obviously filled with infected, but looking through the main doors made it seem like a sea of infected; the tops of the buses were just visible over their bobbing headings.

"Guess there was a bit of commotion before we got here." Mark whispered from behind.

"We'll slowly make our way to the bus; Dustin, there a number on that key?"

"Four."

"Alright then boys, four is our lucky number. Let's go." I said continuing to the door.

"Wait Scott," Tyler said putting his hand on my shoulder "I've got an idea." He said as he pulled out one of his grenades.

"Toss the frag in the direction opposite of our bus?" I inquired.

"Yep, just gotta find the right bus." He said creeping his way to the door and slowly standing; scanning the parking lot he held up four fingers and point towards one of the buses.

"Do it." I signed and he then counted from three and tossed the frag as far as he could away from us and the bus. The thud could be heard all the way where we sat in waiting and somehow things became deathly silent as we waited for detonation; the infected noticed the sound as well and a few even stumbled toward the frag before the report shattered the silence. In a flash the situation went from eerily peaceful to full on hell as the dead charged the explosion site. The somewhat calm sea instantly turned into mass of rotting flesh and loud groaning as the dead surged to the spot and certainly made for an interesting situation to force through.

The numbers slowed as the mass grew and they eventually began attacking each other; so sprinting as quietly as we could, we made our way to the bus and forced the sliding door open and piled in.

"Get us out of here Dustin."

"I'm trying Scott, but this thing is giving me a bit of trouble here." He replied as the engine chugged then died. Trying again he was given the same result; it wasn't until the fourth time that the engine finally revved to life and we barreled our way off campus.


End file.
